Additional profiles from the more than 70 companies debuting products or technologies at this year’s Demo@15 conference.
Here are some additional profiles from the more than 70 companies debuting products or technologies at this year’s Demo@15 conference:
DEMO@15 spotlights security
Wireless gear, conferencing tools to debut
Unified messaging that makes sense?
We’ve been pretty skeptical about unified messaging systems in the past, as it involves a lot of legwork for IT managers installing new equipment, software and clients.
So we’re pretty enthused about the Adomo Voice Messaging for Exchange appliance, which takes voice mail and tightly integrates it with Exchange e-mail and the Microsoft Active Directory. The system looks like it could eliminate work for IT administrators by using one database (unified messaging often used two separate systems); for end users, the system makes voice mail appear as a message in their main messaging application, Outlook.
“Unified Messaging made a lot of promises and didn’t deliver on them,” says Jeff Snider, CEO of Adomo. “The systems would often glue voice mail and e-mail together, but they often had two different systems.”
The Adomo appliance connects to a company’s PBX system (with IP PBX support coming) and the Exchange server to provide the integrated messaging capabilities. Users are grabbed from the Active Directory, eliminating the need for a separate user database.
Features for end users are impressive, too. When someone calls the end user and the person doesn’t answer the call, the system runs through a bunch of different options that can provide more information than going directly to the voice mail. For example, if the caller is a trusted user (determined through caller ID and other identification methods), the system can check to see where the end user is located (through future integration with Microsoft Live Communications Server), and then check the calendar to offer a suggestion on when the end user will be available again. The system can then offer the caller alternatives to voice mail, such as requesting a meeting or forwarding the call to a different person. Or they can just go to regular voice mail.
When the end user becomes available, the voice mail message comes in as an e-mail message, with options for playing the message through any WAV file player, or the user can have the message played to a phone number (the system then calls the appropriate phone number and it plays like a regular voice mail message). For mobile workers, notifications can be sent via Short Message Service (SMS ), or in a wireless e-mail message (like to a BlackBerry or Pocket PC device). Or the messages can go to the user’s regular phone and have the blinking light appear.
Adomo hopes to ship the system by the end of April, Snider says. Pricing for the system will be about $15,000 to $20,000 for the appliance and about $60 per seat (based on 1,000 end users, pricing subject to change), he added.
Easier home automation
Another technology that has been around a while is home automation. But most products fall into one of two slots: the hobbyist, inexpensive arena (Think X10 and Nannycams); and the high-end, needs a professional installer for about $50,000 area. Mass-market home control products have often involved technical installation procedures, which include IP address configuration, firewall port openings, and Web URL address memorization.
The iControl Home Starter Kit, which the company will show off at Demo, aims to eliminate the hassle of setting up a home automation system. The kit involves a home appliance that connects behind a DSL or cable modem (or you can plug it into a home router or gateway); a bunch of sensors such as motion detectors, wired or wireless cameras, door and window sensors, or thermostats; and a Web portal that provides a personal Web page where the system is controlled. The system is designed to be truly plug and play, in fact you don’t even need a PC to install the system – just plug the appliance into the router or modem, plug in your sensors and the system does the rest. The portal includes a bunch of different settings that let a user receive alerts, view video from cameras, and monitor temperatures and other settings. In an interesting twist, the system can send an alert when something doesn’t happen – for example, a door not opening between 2 and 3 p.m. might indicate that your child hasn’t come home from school yet, which would be more of an alert than if they did return home on time.
IControl plans on selling the system to ISPs, telcos and other carriers as a way for them to increase revenue for their high-speed Internet services. It will be marketed, not so much as a home security system, but as a way to be at home or at your office when you’re not actually physically there. We plan on using it to make sure our cats aren’t getting into too much trouble.
Media content any place, any time
Today’s culture is totally about having all of your content available to you at all times. But technology like firewalls, devices and networks often prevent this from actually occurring.
Avvenu plans to launch a digital media service that aims to help consumers reach that goal of having all of their content available to them at all times, and offer applications like file sharing (when legal) among a set of friends. The system/service also fixes the content and makes sure it is the right size, stream, etc, to be played on any type of device, mobile or stationary. The system gets around all the technical issues of getting around a user’s firewall, etc., yet still provides secure access to the content for the end user.
The company recently demonstrated its technology with Motorola and its PocketAlbum application, letting people see that they can show off their entire digital photograph collection stored on a home PC or network.
Avvenu plans to sell the service to handset manufacturers, content providers and wireless carriers as an additional source of revenue for them, although the company also plans it’s own branded service. Initial costs are estimated to be around $50 a year for consumers to subscribe to the service.
Broadband VoIP for road warriors
Using a broadband Internet connection to handle voice calls isn’t earth shattering. But using a system that integrates VoIP into existing communications tools (such as a cell phone, e-mail client and Web browser) is pretty cool.
That’s the idea behind Teleo, which hopes to bridge the gap between VoIP providers like Vonage and CallVantage, which focus on the home markets; and providers like Skype, which handle peer-to-peer, PC-to-PC calls but may not have the ability to receive incoming phone calls from regular phones.
The Teleo service (the company plans a $4.95 per month offering; free PC-to-PC calls and 2 cents per minute for calls to regular phones) gives users a unique telephone number (like Vonage, etc.), and software that runs on the PC. In addition to the calling software that lets users make calls via any broadband Internet connection (like Skype), the Teleo software includes plug-ins for Outlook and for Internet Explorer. In Outlook, a user clicks on an e-mail message from someone, and if the person is in their address book, can then directly call them with the Teleo software. In the Web browser, any phone number listed on the Web site can be directly dialed by clicking on the link. In addition, a customer can use either a headset or a regular telephone (through a USB adapter that connects to an RJ-11 port) to make or receive calls.
“People are already using three tools for their communications needs,” says Peter Sisson, CEO of Teleo. “Instead of giving them a fourth tool, we want to integrate voice into the existing tools and let them use phones that they’re already using.”
Future plans include giving users the ability to forward their Teleo calls to a cell phone (or any other regular phone number), which gives mobile workers a choice on how they want to be contacted.
iUpload Perspectives
Writers of blogs have the problem of getting people to read their stuff (unless they are extremely popular or do a lot of cross-blog promotion). Readers of blogs generally have a hard time trying to find content that’s relevant to them — they have to sift through lots of irrelevant entries before they find something that interests them.
The iUpload Perspectives platform aims to help both groups. The system takes blogging to that next level by letting authors contribute their content to other sites from their own blog. Sites that are looking to provide relevant information then have the ability to approve, deny or edit these entries and then group relevant content together in a more meaningful presentation.
On the content creation side, this gives authors the ability to write an entry in their blog, but then submit the entry to other “perspectives” for approval. For example, a writer may have an entry describing a book they just read, but in addition to posting it on their blog, can submit the entry to Amazon.com or other such site (providing they are a Perspective). The Web site gets the ability to approve or deny the submissions (some will be more strict than others). The advantage for the Web site is that they have access to a larger community of content providers than if they just tried to create a community message board or other such area on their own site.
In addition, users who want only certain people to see their blog entry can do so with the software. After creating an entry, a user can go into an address book perspective, and then select which contacts can see the entry. After that, only those people (through a logon/registration system) will be able to see the item — other visitors won’t see that particular entry.
The software will be free to individuals, with sponsorships sold to sites that want to become “Perspectives,” the company says.
Taking the ‘work’ out of networking
Most people attending events, conferences or trade shows do so for one of three reasons: 1) for professional enrichment (learn new things); 2) see new products that they haven’t seen before; or 3) use the show as an opportunity to network (meet similar colleagues, look for a job, etc.).
While some conferences succeed in presenting the first two items (seminars and exhibitions), the third opportunity is usually the toughest to pull off. Many events usually have a lunch or cocktail party as a social gathering point, and attendees are left to fend for themselves and “work the room” trying to find people they want to talk to.
IntroNetworks aims to change that with its introNetworks software platform — it provides event organizers the ability to have attendees post profiles about themselves before a show, letting other attendees know things like personality traits, job function and skills they may have. For organizers, it gives them a chance to see what the attendees are interested in, as well as other demographic information.
An attendee’s profile is presented in a fun and quick snapshot of the person, including the ability to post a photo, list interests, and pick “keywords” that describe themselves (for example, personality traits like “energetic, talkative, inventive,” etc.). After a profile is created, the user is presented a visual “map” that shows that user’s relationship with all the other people at the event (who have filled out a profile). The user can then scroll over the “pinpoints” to find people who they have lots in common with, or find people they have nothing in common with. Attendees can also filter the responses down through the profile queries (for example, find all the people who put “energetic” in their profile), or keyword searches (e.g., find everyone who is a CEO).
The use of photographs, and the ease of use of the interface make it easy for attendees to use the system and get the ball rolling for social networking. An e-mail system within the interface lets attendees send messages to other attendees, to set up physical meetings or to chat without using a regular e-mail system.
On the back end, introNetworks provides event organizers with a complete set of data, such as reports that show what words were chosen most often by attendees, most popular answers to questions, etc. The platform provides organizers with a premium sponsorship opportunity as well; events can charge an advertiser a premium rate to receive aggregate data from the attendees (only event organizers receive individual attendee data), and to coordinate post-event discussions.
Speaking of post-event, on the attendee side this can be a great way to keep the community going after the event, or in cases where you may have met someone at the show but then lost their business card.
